Tag Archives: hair

I promised you a picture of and ‘how to’ of these felt roses. I’m a day late (apologies), but here goes!

As I said in my last post, I got the ‘how to’ from Gertie’s Blog For better Sewing (are you super excited about her new book, out soon? I can’t wait to get my mitts on a copy!).

Felt roses, great for so many craft projects!

All you need to make these is a strip of felt and a needle and thread.

Have a look at Gertie’s instructions as they’re very clear. I found the trick to folding these is to bend the strip of felt down a 90 degrees angle before continuing to wrap it round.

It has to be said, Gertie’s are better but a) she is Gertie and b) this was a first attempt. I think the effect works much better when using a longer, wider strip, making larger roses. I’m sure I’ll soon post again having made larger roses to prove my point!

Once it’s been made and it’s time to sew it in place, I found that sticking in a few pins helped it keep together — essential if you’ve forgotten to thread your needle already! Gertie’s tip to ‘stab stitch’ is also great one I’ll use again.

I can see endless opportunities for these little pretties. I sewed these on to hair clips but I’ll make more to decorate a fascinator and can also see them being used to prettify presents.

I love this felt hair bow. It’s perfect for bright colour block outfits and gives an outfit a really summery feel. I’ve worn it lots since making it.

All you gave to do is cut the bow shape and then the two ribbon ‘tails’ from your choice of felt and glue them to a hair clip.

Cutting the bow and tails separately gives it more movement, which looks prettier when it’s on.

You can use an image from the Internet as a template but the shape is so simple you probably won’t need to. I drew half a bow on felt with tailors chalk, folded the felt in half and cut round the edge, when I unfolded it I had a perfectly symmetrical bow.

I added detail with a fabric pen but next time I will sew the detail with rope stitch, which I think will look neater and add some extra texture and interest. I can’t wait to try this with different coloured felt as well!

I glued the pieces together and then glued them on to a large silver clip used for finger waves, you can pick a set of these up at most chemists.

Recently, I went to the very special wedding of a very lovely pair of friends. I knew the wedding would be unique and creative and wanted to do something in keeping with those sentiments. Of course, I felt the urge to whip out my needle and knock something up.

What you will need:Netting
A hair slide (the small comb type)
Fabric for the heart (or whatever shape you choose)
Fabric for the ribbon (I chose light grey felt)
Black felt
Embroidery thread in a colour contrasting to the ribbon fabric
Glue
Padding (optional)
Cardboard
Scissors
Embroidery hoop (optional)

Making this was easy, though maybe a little time consuming. To start, I drew a ribbon shape onto a piece of grey felt. I embroidered the lovely couple’s names before cutting the shape. I found it a lot easier to sew the felt using an embroidery hoop and then cut it out, rather than to try holding and sewing a wee scrap of fabric.

Next I made the heart. To do this, mark up and cut out a heart shape from a scrap of cardboard. You can double up the card if it’s quite thin. Then glue some toy padding to one side of the heart shape. This gives it a nice thick squishy feel, but you can leave it out if you want. Then take another piece of fabric, slightly larger than the heart, and cover the padded side with it, gluing it down on the underside. I started with the v-shape dip at the top of the heart, which made sure there were no nasty folds of fabric. I chose a fabric that matched the dress I wore. Yup, it did take a while to find a matching colour (you can’t quite see in the pic but it’s a fiddly ‘Is it blue? Is it purple’ colour) but it was worth it, I think.

I then used the heart as a template to mark up and cut out another heart from black felt. I stuck this to the back of the heart to cover up the messy underside. Then I simply sewed the netting and the comb to the back of the heart, making sure that both were a position that would look good once it was on.

I felt little bubbles of excitement every time I looked at those embroidered names in the run up to the big day! It’s a bit sad that the fascinator’s life was so short-lived — I realise I’d look like some kind of couple stalker if I ever chose to wear it again — but it burned brightly before snuffing it. In fact, the wedding guests papped it so often it felt famous!

Here’s me doing a trial run of the fascinator and hair do (I went for victory rolls in the top section of hair and loose curls in the bottom).